Myth of Philosophers stone
by hsakuragi283
Summary: Harry and Hermione have some things to say about the wisest move played by Albus Dumbledore. slightly implied h/hr. first chapter is reposted with corrections in grammar
1. Chapter 1

Authors note: This take in sixth year, no confirmed time period, Dumbledore hasn't told harry about the horcrux yet. with all the corrected grammar mistakes.

Myth of philosopher's stone

"There is no such thing as philosophers stone, is there? Never was. "

Abrupt question coming from the teenager startled the ancient wizard. He never thought anyone can figure it out, much less a teenager who showed very average performance in classes. He never considered himself to be egoistic, but it was one of the wisest moves he had made in life and often patted himself on back for it.

But to be undone by green eyed teenager in front of him was disappointing. He was proud of the boy, no doubt about it but still wanted to be sure that he understood situation correctly.

"What do you want to say Harry? What gave you that idea?" Albus Dumbledore asked collecting himself and in grandfatherly tone.

"Nicholas Flamel , is only a myth you created. Isn't he?" Harry countered with a question of his own.

Albus knew then there was no denying it , Harry had figured it out. And after last year he had promised to be as honest with the boy as possible. That was the promise he had made with himself after he told Harry the prophesy.

"This can take a while to explain Harry. You want to take it to the more comfortable environment?" he asked, already going to his chamber, knowing the answer.

"Well I got nothing better to do. Might as well make use of the time I have "Harry answered following his mentor.

"Before we begin Harry, I would like to know how you came to this conclusion and why do you want to know it." Albus asked, peeking over his glasses, with twinkle and curiosity in his eyes similar to look in Hermione's whenever she heard of a new book.

"Well…, you see when I first entered the wizarding world I heard many stories of how I conquered the most dark wizard of the age. I am not naïve enough to trust that and even if I had said otherwise no one would have believed me. so I kept that to myself but I was curious ,I knew mum or dad must have done something to take him down with themselves " Harry stopped here his mood getting somber with memory of his parents .

"Yes your mother sacrificed herself to save you and her love protected you as a form of blood wards" Dumbledore tried to help him along seeing as he was unable to continue.

"Yeah, you explained as much in my first year. Which solidified my assumption that blocking of killing curse was intentional and not some accident which some people would like to assume? After facing quirrelmort I knew it wasn't the last time I would face him. And I wanted to know how to stop killing curse for the next time. I believed that if it is done once it can be done again but the question was how." Harry stopped to breathe when Dumbledore asked

"And you believe you have found a way to do it? " Astonishment clear in his voice.

"Not to the fine details but, to some extent I understand the procedure, yes" answered harry annoyed at the lack of faith Dumbledore was showing him but knew it was justified looking at his past records.

"You see I and Hermione have been working on it since end of first year, well she does the research and I decide the path of that research. We started looking for the type of magic which will require sacrifice of sort." Dumbledore attempted to interrupt at this point but harry continued "I know it comes under dark and restricted magic and hence we weren't able to find much. In the end Hermione suggested that it can be a ritual or something which was carried out prior to that night and my mother's sacrifice was key which triggered the protection."

"I know you said that my mother's sacrifice saved me but that was not the only factor. If that was voldemort would have been dead long ago, because he killed countless people and every mother would have fought for her child so I was sure there was a ritual. Then I remembered Nicholas Flammel . I mean alchemy is just advance ritual right, which uses potion, arithmacy and ruins, so our search for elusive Nicholas Flammel started. But you see he was nowhere to be found no trace whatsoever." Harry chuckled mirthlessly

"He was crucial for my living because he was the creator of temporary immortality with philosopher's stone. Hermione suggested we ask you but I wanted to keep it as secret as it could that's why we didn't even told Ron in fear of his famous foot in mouth with inhumanly big mouth condition. And I knew you wouldn't tell me. Hell you didn't want to tell about my life, how was I supposed to get answer completely unrelated to me."

"Hermione suggested following his family history and achievement to narrow idea of his living arrangement to somewhere more precise than 'anywhere in the world'. Imagine our surprise when we couldn't get anything concrete just vague mentions of his appearances. I mean he may be the strongest and wisest wizard and still he wasn't part of any wizarding war nor was his part of ICW or any organizations. I understand wanting to protect philosopher's stone but what use is life if you are wasting it in isolation not doing anything productive. An ordinary wizard may be able to accept such life not wizard of his caliber. Did you know that philosophers stone was his last invention and besides that his only work is with you that is 'twelve uses of dragons blood '.

"There are very brief visits mentioned to ministry records and when we asked goblins they threw us out and won't give us any information about Nicholas Flammal for any price. I was quite surprised at last bit though, come on goblins refusing money. talk about that"

Then Harry smiled at something he remembered and continued "you know when you want to find loopholes in an agreement consider taking help from Hermione. She is more cunning that any Slytherine that I know of. she asked for Flammal family tree and when they refused she said that I as conqueror of basilisk will give them full rights of harvesting basilisk. You know how rare they are and they were not breaking any of their rules by just providing us a family tree of every witch that was married into Flammel family"

"By then I was not surprised by what we found, I had some inclination about he not even being real. I mean he was older than anyone alive, had a wife who was supposed to be very beautiful and was in hiding doing nothing of importance why the hell then he did not have single kid . I checked every letter that was sent to magical children with the help of dobby and none of it for any Flammel , where as Hagrid mentioned to me in first year that each magical child is registered in Hogwarts registry due to some ancient magic"

"We were very disappointed when we realized our research was for nothing. But then Hermione asked the most obvious question in situation like this 'why'. why would someone go through all this trouble to just to make us believe that someone exists, what will anyone achieve by keeping him alive . We knew money was not issue because goblins won't let anyone but the owner of vault to enter it. And any other explanations we came with weren't making any sense"

"And how did you come up with idea of me knowing anything Harry?" Dumbledore asked Harry.

"We didn't." came a feminine voice from behind them. After a few seconds a bushy haired witch came into view sporting a small smile.

"How…?"Dumbledore trailed off shocked, in first time of his life by someone sneaking on him. It didn't happen very often and not with his students. He was still trying to figure it out when Hermione answered

"We have charms on our robes to prevent smell and noise of fabric, and silencing charms on shoes" explaining how she was able to sneak on him. It probably wasn't fair to old wizard as he was too captivated listening to Harry. Hermione blushed a little for startling him and started further story.

"We weren't sure about your part in it. There were only two alternatives either you knew and were playing along or you had been deceived with us. We were inclining on first one though it was confirmed when you admitted to talking about this . " she sat comfortably with harry on the loveseat.

"Reason for us to become suspicious of you is because that is how you work" Hermione began but Dumbledore cut her off

"I am afraid I don't get your meaning miss Granger."

"You, headmaster, with all due respect, are a control freak you want everything as planned. That is why instead of making plans or disturbing enemy plans you let them carry out and interfere at the last moment. You hate unpredictability knowing that it is the major factor which decides winning or losing. That is why you let quirrelmort with his plan in our first year, let triwizard tournament go on , and letting Draco Malfoy carry out his plan knowing what is going on."

"You don't understand what is forced to do …."Dumbledore started but Harry cut him off

"We know he is trying to infiltrate Hogwarts from inside professor even a child with a little logic can tell that spoiled brat as Malfoy is, he is still a student here and has the best chance of doing it. But we don't want to discuss it right now" Harry calmed down when Hermione put a calming hand on his shoulder. Seeing as he was calm Hermione tried to continue.

"You knew sooner or later Grindewald would try and achieve immortality. But you knew that wizards by nature were lazy. Hence you took the name of the famous extinguished alchemist and spread the rumor that he has the substance for eternal life. So instead of finding a way himself, then dark lord used his resources in finding a man who didn't exist and while he was distracted you breached his defenses"

"But there was always the possibility of someone else trying it so you kept the legend alive by changing your appearance and visiting places as Nicholas. If I am not wrong then goblins and some people from ministry are also involved in this scam."

"I am very proud of both of your intelligence Harry, you figured out what I have been trying to hide most of my life. But what I don't understand is what the point of having this discussion is?"For the time being headmaster found that he was really confused. Yes it sucked to be outsmarted by someone who is junior to you by a century. But he had to know why it was happening

"The fact is professor that I am scared. "Harry answered in a very low voice "when I look back at my first year I realize that voldemort would have come for me even without philosopher's stone here in Hogwarts. But you used philosopher's stone as an distraction from me. And that gives me hope that he is not immortal if he went after supposed instrument for immortality. What I don't understand is why he keeps coming back. What's keeping him in our world? The fact that you and goblins went through all this trouble makes me wonder if it can be done. Is that why you are trying so hard to keep that information? And if it is possible then I want to know what's keeping him alive so I can eliminate it and stop it before he becomes immortal. The point is headmaster that I want to live just one more day than that bastard. The point of this research is to prove you that I can find answers on my own , I just want you to give them to if you know, so I won't waste my time on finding which I can know in minutes."

Albus Dumbledore always held knowledge in highest regard and he trusted people around him very little with this knowledge. But what harry told him forced him to see harry as not mere boy but as an equal wizard. Savior of wizarding Britain. Yes harry and Hermione had proven themselves. They deserved to know. Severus may disagree with him but it was time he parted with his biggest secrets, it was time Harry knew about the Horcrux

THE END


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was midnight and Griffindor common room was empty as all students had gone to bed except two teens, to whom sleep was not coming easily. They were sitting on couch near to fire taking in the comfortable warmth from each other and thinking about what they had just witnessed.

It had been days since Dumbledore told them about Horcruxes. And few hours since they had viewed Slughorns memory where he told young Tom about the abomination called horcuxes.

To anyone watching from outside it was a simple conclusion that Tom made horcruxes and if headmaster was to be believed there were five more of them. But to Harry it didn't look like that straight. Something was missing and it was bothering him.

"What are you thinking about Harry?" Hermione asked not able to withstand the silence. She was always able to tell what was bothering him before. But at this point even she was clueless. He could be thinking of anything like how Dumbledore was dying because of the ring of Salazar? How were they going to tell Ron? Or if they can even trust him with such a secret. And if headmaster was right then how were they going to find and destroy them when he was gone? But her thoughts were suddenly interrupted when Harry suddenly started talking.

"Voldemort may be playing with our heads Hermione. That can be the only explanation of this mess." He said looking grave.

"Please explain Harry" asked Hermione knowing that he must have given this a long thought before voicing his concern.

"Horcrux is only a myth voldemort created to throw off people on his trail. Horcrux are not the something which is keeping him in our plane they are the traps set up by him to take care of his enemy. He does not need to be immortal to live long Hermione; he just had to make people believe that he IS. And people who believed him to be immortal will go for horcruxes to make him mortal again. These people will fall for his traps and if not then voldemort will have enough time to finish them off."

Hermione was surprised but had to know something "Whatever gave you that idea Harry. Even with all his faults Dumbledore IS the smartest and greatest wizard in Britain, and he believes that Horcrux is the thing keeping him alive and what other explanation is there for voldemort to come back to life after you defeated him."

"Slughorn is still alive Hermione that alone makes me doubtful about horcruxes." Harry said looking very grim.

Suddenly it hit Hermione. If horcruxes were so important to voldemort why didn't he sever all loose ends that could lead someone to them? He was the strongest after Dumbledore and had many years to finish Slughorn off. On top of that if Slughorn was hiding that memory so well, he knew that Tom Riddle was none other than Voldemort. And voldemort had worked hard to keep his identity as half-blood from being exposed then why was Horace Slughorn still alive.

Seeing that Hermione understood what he was trying to say harry continued further "If I had to guess, I will say that he wanted us to know about horcruxes. And that's why Slughorn is still alive, Tom deliberately asked him about horcrux to give anyone who asks him about it hint that he had made horcruxes. But Slughorn -being the Slytherine he is- hid that memory so the blame does not come to him. As for Dumbledore, there are only two options either he truly believes this horcrux theory or he is not sure and want to be on safer side by destroying those things."

"Or he wants to give impression that he is finding horcruxes while looking for the alternate ways to defeat Voldemort because we still don't know how he survived all those years ago." Hermione put her thoughts, now familiar with how Dumbledore worked.

Harry nodded in agreement "It is possible but I don't think he will take a suicide mission just to fool Voldemort into thinking that his plan worked. But as you mentioned we don't know what keeps Voldemort alive."

"So what do we do now?"Hermione asked feeling a bit lost about the whole situation.

"What can we do? We have to keep doing what we were doing before. Keep finding what happened the night my parents died that is the only thing we are sure about right now. Everything else seems to be planned by 'greater wizards'." Harry replied sarcastically.

Hermione nodded and opened her mouth to say something but closed it hesitating. When harry saw it he asked her about it and after much thinking Hermione replied

"I was thinking we should visit Black family library in Grimmauld place. It is the only place we know where we can find some darker material to read and relate to horcrux and maybe we will find something about your mother's ritual." She completed in one breath knowing that Sirius was still sensitive subject to talk with Harry.

His expression dulled a bit at the mention of his dead godfathers family home but knew that Hermione wouldn't had brought it up if not absolutely necessary and he agreed with her, she was after all his research expert.

"Yes we should do that. Also I was thinking of taking more active political role in politics. Now that Voldemort is back I think will have more influence what with me being the chosen one."Harry replied. Hermione was looking at his face for any sign of humor but he was very serious. At her questioning look he said

"When my parents died that night they gave me something no one expected Hermione." He sighed and stopped talking for a while like preparing to say a secret." They made me a hero. A hero that wizarding word needs right now, however hard I try to deny it people will always look for me to lead them in better future. And not doing that will be dishonoring their sacrifice. So I am going to do just that. I may not be in his league when it comes to power, but I can certainly fight him by showing people how fake he is."

Hermione was smiling at him proudly. She knew that he didn't owe world anything but was doing this because he owed his parents that much.

"I will be always be by your side, you know that. Right." She said taking his hand in hers.

"Never doubted for even a second." Harry replied giving her a lopsided grin.


End file.
